Amanda's Blue Marine (22 page)

"Can't I just hold you a little, for a minute or two?" He sounded as desperate as she felt, and even though she knew she was making a mistake, even though she knew she was opening the floodgates to unleash high tide, she stepped into his arms.

"I want to remember this forever," he murmured, as she pressed her cheek against his uniform blouse and closed her eyes.

He said nothing, merely tightened his grip on her. She had been this close to him before, during the Cameron siege when they were escaping together, and she'd had a vivid impression of his persona then which was reinforced now: strength, capability, a shield from harm. It was the quality that her conservative, respectful father had taught her to associate with the police, and Kelly embodied it. That combined with his physical appeal had devastated her from the start. He was the most attractive man she had ever met. And now she would never see him again. Not in the same way. Not in the way she needed. Their tenuous connection would be severed and in the future they would lead separate lives.

They had been standing motionless for some time. He wasn't pressing her for more but he wasn't letting her go either. He was taking his cues from her.

He's trying to end this nicely, Mandy thought. But I don't want to be nice. I want him. In my life, in my bed, in my soul. Why can't I have what I want?

"The curls at the nape of your neck," she said suddenly, trying to ground herself. "They look so soft and downy." Her breath caught on a sob as she reached up and touched them gently. "They are."

"Amanda... don't." He sounded hoarse.

"I'll miss seeing them," she went on, whispering. "And that cowlick over your left ear, how the hair won't lay down flat. I'll miss that too." She was rambling, losing it, very close to tears.

She felt his fingers tighten on her arms. "Don't talk any more," he said, in a constricted voice she hardly recognized. "Don't say anything else." He held her off and looked down at her, and she was lost in his gaze. It was an enormous effort to look away from him.

"We can't do this," she murmured.

"Do what? We haven't done anything!" he burst out in frustration. He seized her by the shoulders suddenly and bent at the knees, putting himself on an eye level with her. His face was inches from hers.

"I don't want to steal anybody else's lover," he said. "I wouldn't want anybody to do that to me. But I feel like you're MY lover, mine. I have for a while now, almost from the start. In my mind, in my heart, you belong to me."

Mandy said nothing. Of course he would have the courage to say it first, while she dithered about and cried and couldn't take action. His feelings mirrored hers exactly. He wasn't the most articulate person in the world with anyone else, but he always knew just what to say to get through to her.

He shook her gently and tipped her chin up with one forefinger, forcing her to look directly at him.

"Do you love Henderson?" he finally asked, his tone despairing. "Do you?”

Mandy gestured helplessly. "I've known him for a long time, he and my father were friends, it was easy and comfortable and it seemed right....."

"Do you love him?" Kelly insisted.

"I thought I did." She bit her lip as her eyes flooded. "Until I met you."

His heart leaped. Emboldened, he said more quietly, "Do you love ME, Amanda?" His gaze was fixed on her face. He was barely breathing.

She closed her eyes and the tears spilled down her cheeks. She covered her mouth with her hand and nodded mutely.

He pulled her against him tightly and Mandy could hear the pounding of his heart under his uniform blouse, felt the muscles in his arms flex as he embraced her.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered, as he allowed himself the luxury of burying his face in her neck. "I love you too, so much. I'll make you happy, you'll see." His voice was filled with a mix of emotions - relief, elation, triumph. She loved him. He would hold on to that and forget everything else.

Mandy clung to him, her confusion fading as the rightness of his embrace enveloped her and soothed her. His mouth moved to her ear, her forehead, and finally to her lips.

His lips were soft, caressing and gentle at first, then more demanding and forceful as their passion escalated. Mandy opened her mouth and kissed him back, sinking her fingers into his hair, pulling him tighter against her and molding her body to his. The desire to get close to him was so overwhelming that it blocked all other considerations from her mind.

Kelly's hands slipped down her naked back, his fingers tracing her spine lightly, then came up again to rest at the clasp of her halter top.

"I want this off," he murmured, undoing the hook at her nape. As the dress fell to her waist she turned in his arms and lay back against his shoulder.

"Put your hands on me," she whispered, her eyes closing luxuriously.

He held her loosely and covered one breast with his hand and the other with his mouth. She pressed him closer, gasping as his hot, wet mouth enclosed her nipple and he slipped his hand under her dress caressingly. He kissed her endlessly, relentlessly, changing the pressure of his mouth on her skin and then moving his lips back to hers as he drew her ever tighter. She clung to him, pulling his blouse loose from his waistband and running her hands up his slim, muscled back. She felt her knees go weak and realized that she wanted to lay down with him, to twine her legs with his, to absorb and consume him.

"I can't stand up any more," she gasped.

Kelly raised his head and looked around wildly but saw only a sea of tables in the otherwise empty room. He lifted her and set her on the edge of the table nearest them and said to her in an urgent, breathless voice, "Lock your legs around me."

Mandy obeyed him.

Sure now of her feelings, he was unstoppable. He ran his hands over the satiny skin of her arms, under the silken weight of her hair. His touch claimed her constantly as she responded wildly, kissing him everywhere she could reach, marveling at the softness of his lips, his lashes, his hair. Drunk on his scents-shampoo, shaving cream, the starch of his shirt, the overwhelming intoxicant of his musky skin- she pushed her nose inside his collar and licked the hollow of his throat. He sighed deeply.

"Take off your shirt," she said huskily, her voice unrecognizable as the one she knew.

He released her instantly, yanking on the top two buttons of his blouse and sending the second one flying onto the carpet. Then he pulled the blouse over his head in one gesture, dropping it on the floor.

They came together again in one movement. Kelly put his head back against the wall, his eyes closed, his lips parted, and held her lightly. She closed her arms around his neck and rubbed her face on his bare shoulder, then ran her tongue over his flat nipples, the indentation that bisected his chest. She kissed an old scar on his shoulder and licked the fresher scar on his arm from James Cameron's knife. She could hear his breathing getting harsher as she inched back and ran the palm of her hand over the flat muscles of his abdomen, the line of hair running down to his belt. She looked up at him and saw the flush of excitement on his skin, the bruised lips she had kissed, the haze of passion lowering his lids.

“I love the scent of your skin,” she whispered, trailing her lips along his collarbone. “Your clothes smell just like this and I do too when you’ve been holding me. I love it.”

She slipped her hand beneath the buckle of his belt as he groaned and then stepped back, lifting her and pulling her legs closer around him.

"I want to get so deep inside of you," he said into her ear. She clung to him, her eyes closed, awash in lust, unable to think of anything except what he had just said and what he was going to do next.

Suddenly the chandelier above them burst into brilliance. The room was illuminated like an operating theater and they sprang apart as if doused with a vat of ice water.

"There must a be a remote control outside for the lights,” Kelly muttered, recovering instantly and setting her on the floor. "Somebody's coming into this room."

As if in response to what he had said they heard knocking on the door to the hall.

He grabbed his shirt from the floor and handed it to Mandy. "Put this on and go in there," he said quickly, pointing to the rest room sign to the left of the bar. "Stay there until I come and get you."

Mandy shrugged into his shirt and looked at him anxiously.

"It's all right," he said. "I'll handle it." He pulled her by the hand and opened the rest room door.

Mandy fled inside, gathering the straps of her halter at her waist, closing the door of the bathroom. Kelly donned his jacket, opened his wallet to expose his badge, looked back to make sure Mandy was out of sight, and then pulled open the door to the hall.

Mandy tried to listen to what he was saying, something in a laughing tone about "not exactly police business", but she was too mortified by the sight of herself in the bathroom mirror to concentrate. Her hair had been tortured into a Medusa wig by Kelly's seeking hands, her eye makeup was smeared from her tears and his mouth, her lipstick was gone from her lips but visible on her chin, and there was a giant hickey blooming on the side of her neck.

She closed her eyes and prayed that she could repair this damage before anyone else saw it. No wonder Kelly had shoved her into the bathroom. She looked well used and felt guilty, like a tenth grader caught in a tryst under the bleachers.

She listened again and heard him saying that he'd received the award that night and gone into the empty room to clean up and change before his shift. She heard him explaining his dishabille to whoever was there, and then heard more conversation and finally the goodbyes. He appeared seconds later in the doorway and examined her standing before the bathroom mirror. Their eyes met in the glass.

"First, let's fix this," he said, and pulled his shirt off her shoulders. He took her breasts in hand, one at a time, and bent to kiss each nipple gently, then lifted the halter back to her neck and fastened the clasp.

"That's a shame," he sighed. "I liked the Godiva look." He put his shirt back on, ignoring the missing button, and slipped once more into his jacket.

"Who was that knocking and what did you say?"

"Just one of the maids who wanted to check on something for the party in here tomorrow. She had been in the main hall during the awards thing and recognized me, so I was able to talk my way out of it."

He ran water into the basin and pulled out his handkerchief, handing it to her. She wet it and added a little soap, scrubbing off the mascara and eye liner which had migrated on her face.

"That's better," he said, when she was finished. "You look less like a wide receiver for the Packers."

"I'm glad you're finding this so amusing," Mandy said, fishing in her purse for a brush. She located it and began to tame her wild mane with rapid strokes. Her hair responded by erupting into a static halo snapping with electricity.

"I think that's the best you're going to do tonight, Red," he said. "We'd better get out of here before that maid returns with reinforcements."

Mandy looked at him calmly. "I'll go to my parents’ house now. Tom’s expecting me there to review the plans for my father's birthday party. I’ll talk to him tonight."

“Are you certain that’s what you want?” Kelly asked, not to discourage her but to reassure himself.

“Yes.” She put her arms around his waist and dropped her head to his shoulder. "I don't want to leave you."

He pried her off him gently. "Don't start that again or we'll never get out of here," he murmured, kissing the top of her head. “You need to go.” He was afraid that if they lingered she would change her mind.

His gaze was filled with love, and hope, and anticipation. "My brother's at my place with his poker buddies. We can't go there later."

“Wait for me at my condo. I’ll give you the keys.”

He shook his head. “The security people know me from the Cameron episode. I don’t think I should be letting myself into your place. Do you want this to be public just yet?”